A History Project by Nate Stringer, Tory Martin, and Claire Starke
This is our research team’s Key Image. Source: Newman, Mike. “The History of Headphones.” Cool Material, 5 Sept. 2017. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2019. coolmaterial.com/roundup/history-of-headphones/.

Welcome! This website was made by Tory Martin, Nate Stringer, and Claire Starke. We are three students from the University of Mary Washington studying the uses of headphones and the impact they have had in America both past and present. We decided to pick this piece of technology because all three of us use headphones daily, as do many people. With the rate of technology ever-changing, we have observed how this artifact has been altered to fit the growing needs and wants of the consumers.

Frequency of Student Headphone Use

Poll created by Claire Starke and Tory Martin November 6-7th

This graph was created using Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook media outlets to find the frequency of headphone use by students. 500 students were asked how many times they used headphones in a week, the options were: Daily, 5 times a week, 3 times a week, or less than 3 times a week. The poll was created by Claire Starke and Tory Martin on November 6th and was open until 24 hours passed, closing on November 7th. The poll was created due to the curiosity to see just how much of an impact headphones have on fellow students.

What is this site?

There are different pages on this site showing the past and present of headphones.

The Blog Page has posts from each student analyzing articles, advertisements, and case studies.

The Documentary Page has a video documentary on headphones throughout history. Included below the video are the script and our bibliography for our website and documentary.

The Initial Website Proposal Page has behind the scenes of our project planning. This includes our outline, project proposal, and annotated bibliography.

The Antecedents Page talks about all the ideas and inventions that led up to the invention of headphones. They are essentially the ancestors of the headphones. This page also includes the history of the very first invention of headphones in 1910.

The Early Models Page has pictures and information of the early inventions after the first pair were invented up until the 1980s.

The Commercial and Current Products Page has details about what headphones look like when they were just beginning to blow up the market starting in 2000. There are pictures and information showing 2000’s products up to today’s products.